PubMed · 11763573
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T C Lawry. Recognizing and managing Website risks.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11763573/
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A speech synthesizer was developed that operates by summing exponentially damped sinusoids at frequencies and amplitudes corresponding to peaks derived from the spectrum envelope of the speech signal. The spectrum analysis begins with the calculation of a smoothed Fourier spectrum. A masking threshold is then computed for each frame as the running average of spectral amplitudes over an 800-Hz window. In a rough simulation of lateral suppression, the running average is then subtracted from the smoothed spectrum (with negative spectral values set to zero), producing a masked spectrum. The signal is resynthesized by summing exponentially damped sinusoids at frequencies corresponding to peaks in the masked spectra. If a periodicity measure indicates that a given analysis frame is voiced, the damped sinusoids are pulsed at a rate corresponding to the measured fundamental period. For unvoiced speech, the damped sinusoids are pulsed on and off at random intervals. A perceptual evaluation of speech produced by the damped sinewave synthesizer showed excellent sentence intelligibility, excellent intelligibility for vowels in /hVd/ syllables, and fair intelligibility for consonants in CV nonsense syllables.
Some physicians may be insufficiently prepared to work with the many patients who have hearing loss. People with hearing loss constitute approximately 9% of the U.S. population, and the prevalence is increasing. Patients with hearing loss and their physicians report communication difficulties; physicians also report feeling less comfortable with these patients. Although communication with patients plays a major role in determining diagnoses and management, little attention is given to teaching medical students and residents the skills necessary to facilitate communication when hearing loss is involved. The need for these skills will increase with the expected rise in the number of such patients. The author presents the rationale for including information about hearing loss in curricula on patient-doctor communication, and suggests curricular content, including background regarding hearing loss and techniques that can enhance the physician's ability to listen to (that is, "hear") and learn about the stories of these patients.